


Waiting For the Big Boom

by Sab



Category: The West Wing
Genre: (Uploaded by Punk), 1980s, M/M, Make-outs in Jail, Meet Cute in Jail, Pre-Series, Protests
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-02-16
Updated: 2001-02-16
Packaged: 2017-11-29 13:16:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/687375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sab/pseuds/Sab
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In 1989, to the soundtrack of bad 80s rock, Sam met Josh in jail. (Uploaded by Punk, from you guys are just fucked.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waiting For the Big Boom

**Author's Note:**

> Liz stuck around to beta. YV stuck around to read. And this is for Punk, august and Dawn, because everybody's writin' West Wing now.

"Forty-seven back beats living in a big tree..."

Sam and Annika fit like a yin and a yang in the chilly Amtrak vestibule, his back against one wall, her back against the other, her arm draped over his shins and her sneakers squeaking on the pitted metal by his head.

Between them, a boom box played "Wild, Wild West" and Annika sang along, making up the words she didn't know.

"Forty-seven heartbeats beating like a drum, gotta live it up, live it up, something's got a new one..."

"New gun," Sam said. "You know what's cool?"

"What's cool?"

"They mean the western hemisphere. The wild, wild, western world."

"It's just a dance song, Sam," Annika said, rooting around in her backpack for something.

"No, it's not," Sam said. "It's very significant. 'Heading for the nineties.' Living in the wild, wild western world. It's about -- this is, the end of the eighties, it's, like, a pivotal time. It's about America, and the new economics, and nuclear war, and the end of the world. It's about being indulgent. It's about eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die. It's really very sad."

Annika emerged from her backpack with a tape, and she shut the radio off. Some woman started singing, a cover of Dylan's "Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall," and Sam closed his eyes again.

It was 1989. Sam was 20. There was a republican in office. And that year, back before cynicism was cool, Josh and Sam met in jail.

&&&&

The train from New Jersey pulled into Union Station at just past noon, and Annika woke Sam up with a kiss on the forehead. 

"We're here," she said. "Put your shoes back on."

She stood up, holding a fat wooden clip between her teeth and corralling her mess of blonde dreadlocks into a ponytail. Sam tied his shoes and watched her a little. She'd found out about this rally, she'd told him about it, she'd bought the train tickets over the phone using his credit card. She'd gotten in touch with a guy named Boxer and she'd told him they'd meet him at the Mall and they'd have a big blue sign. She wasn't wearing a bra. 

Sam picked up his backpack and stood beside the door, waiting for it to open. 

Outside, it was warm for October, warmer than in Princeton. Annika had promised him it would be, but he'd taken a second sweater anyway, making his backpack fat and lumpy and causing his notebook to push through the nylon into his spine. Annika had clipped the boom box to the bottom of her own backpack with two carabiners, and it slapped against her ass when she walked. She walked ahead of him anyway, turning a couple pirouettes and waiting for him to catch up. He felt himself walking in a slow caricature, just to piss her off.

"Don't be like that," she said at a stoplight. "I'm in a good mood."

Sam shoved his hands in his pockets. "I'm not being like anything," he said.

She looked at him sideways. "Good," she said. "If you want to fight, we can fight later. Let's just do this thing."

Sam didn't want to fight. They'd been fighting for almost a month, during which time they'd broken up twice but Annika hadn't moved out. He was tired of fighting, particularly since, like this time, he usually seemed to come into these conversations halfway through. He'd spend all his time trying to catch up to where Annika was, at which point she'd already forgiven him for whatever it was he had or hadn't done, and then she'd cry and he'd turn the computer back on and work on his thesis. When she would crawl into bed an hour or so later he'd save his work, climb in beside her, make love, and then lie there until she fell asleep. Then he'd get back up, go to the computer and work on his thesis again. 

Annika was still looking at him. The light changed. Sam crossed the street.

"Don't do that," Annika said, catching up, walking a little bowlegged with the boom box flapping behind her. "I'm doing this for you. You never even said thank you."

"Thank you," Sam said. She fell in beside him.

"I know how important stuff like this is to you," she said. "I just want to be part of your life, Sam."

He knew. He didn't particularly care, but he knew. Annika couldn't care less about politics, but she'd brought him here because she knew this House vote was important to him, and he fought his impulse to be embarrassed by her. Instead he held out a hand to stop her, and turned her around so he could kiss her. "I know," he said. She seemed appeased.

There were a good two hundred people on the Mall. Annika unrolled the big blue posterboard sign and held it up above her head, shaking it like thunder paper. White letters that Annika had carefully stenciled and cut out and glued on guidelines read "NO NUKES IN MY DEMOCRACY." She'd come up with the slogan, and Sam didn't bother telling her it didn't really make sense. She'd left little squiggles of glue all over his apartment floor.

"We're never gonna find this guy," Sam said. "There's got to be a couple hundred people here."

"We'll find him," she said. "I have good karma."

Sam didn't know what karma had to do with anything. "Okay," he said.

Four guys with bongo drums took their cue from Annika's sign, chanting "NO NUKES IN MY DEMOCRACY!" and playing an off-tempo beatnik rhythm. The proximal crowd joined in, everyone keeping his own time, and a couple of girls in skirts started spinning in circles. Sam rubbed his eyes.

"I want to see how close I can get," he said, wiggling out of his backpack and dropping it on the ground at Annika's feet. "Stay here and try to find whatshisname and I'll be right back, how's that?"

She gave him a weird look. "I'll come with you," she said, lowering the sign. The drum circle seemed confused.

"No, I'll be right back," Sam said. "I just want to see who's up there, if there's cops, what's going on."

"Are you coming back?" Annika looked like a four-year-old, and Sam exhaled through his nose.

"I'll be right back," Sam said for the third time. But he dug his other sweater out of his backpack anyhow and tied it around his waist. Annika watched him, and he pretended not to notice. He cleaned his glasses on the hem of his shirt and put them back on.

"Love you," Annika called after Sam as he pushed his way through the crowd. 

"Me too," he called back.

Sam crawled along the perimeter of the crowd and emerged at the top of Capitol Hill, where there were cops. Of course there were cops. The House was meeting, voting on a proposal to fund research into the consequences of nuclear testing in space. Sam, six months deep in a thesis on defense budget reallocation, wished he'd brought his notebook. 

He sat down on the bumper of a yellow construction truck and dug around in his pockets, looking for something to write on.

"Can't sit there," a cop said, leaving the crowd to come loom over Sam. Sam stood up.

"Sorry."

"If you're with the protesters, you'll have to stay behind the rope line," the cop said. 

"I'm a student," Sam said.

"You'll have to stay behind the rope line," the cop said again.

Sam looked behind the rope line. Some more girls in skirts were spinning, but the majority of protesters were crowded along the police tape, shaking their signs and hollering anthems and obscenities. Six or seven different radios were playing, at least one of them playing "Wild Wild West." 

The door to the House wing opened, and two men and a woman came down the steps. They were in shirts and ties, the woman and one of the men in wool jackets with laminated nametags clipped on. Sam didn't recognize any of their faces, but he watched them anyway. "I'm doing research for my thesis," he said to the cop. 

"Don't see a notebook," the cop said.

"My girlfriend's supposed to meet me here," Sam said, and it sounded stupid even as he was saying it. The men and the woman had almost reached the rope line, but they'd stopped and were talking, looking at the protesters, laughing. Sam was embarrassed and backed up a little further from the crowd. 

That was where he was supposed to be, he knew, on that side of the rope line, coming out of the Capitol building, going to get coffee, going to get lunch. Working late nights with like-minded people who knew that terrorizing DC police officers was not the way to get things done. 

"I'm going," Sam said to the cop. "Sorry to interfere with you doing your job. I know you're just doing your job."

The cop looked at him strangely, and Sam backed away, around behind the construction truck and down the hill again toward the road. The men and the woman were ahead of him now, and he stayed far enough away so they wouldn't hear his footsteps. He felt like a starfucker in Hollywood, stalking a TV personality at Starbucks. He thought about Annika, and kept walking. 

A bottle rocket went off about ten yards from where he was standing, and he jumped and stumbled and covered his ears. A tree went up in flames. 

Shouting. Gunshots, maybe. Another bottle rocket. Footsteps, a thousand footsteps, coming toward him. 

Sirens.

He should have run when the crowd came pouring down on him, should have kicked off and kept going and blended in and gotten lost and found Annika later and gone home. Anyone with an ounce of survival instinct would have, and later he cursed himself for it, ashamed.

But he wanted to know where the Capitol people were, the men and the woman, and his only other thought was that he'd left his backpack with Annika with half a year's research notes inside. And he didn't move, not even when a hundred people had pushed past him and off into the streets, throwing their signs in the air, huge sheets of cardboard getting caught up in the inferno in the trees. 

And then someone was pulling his arms across his back, pushing down on the top of his head, shoving him into a police van. 

&&&&

At the station, someone down the hall was pitching a fit. Sam only caught about every fourth word as the police copied down his driver's license number and took his prints and had him empty his pockets and shake out his shoes, but whoever it was was even less happy to be here than Sam was and was showing no signs of shutting up about it.

From somewhere, a radio was playing "Wild Wild West." Five college-age kids, also corralled from the rally and definitely stoned, were sleeping it off in a holding cell, but Sam they sent to go sit in an orange plastic chair with a handful of other unhappy-looking protesters.

The shouting guy was still going, and the police brought him back into the main waiting room where Sam was and told him to sit down and clam up. Sam recognized him now as one of the guys who'd come out of the House wing before the fireworks, the one without the suitcoat, without the nametag. Sam opened his mouth to say something but the cop shot him a dirty look and he closed his mouth again.

With a groan, finally, the House guy sat down, propping his elbows on his knees and holding his face in his hands. 

The police left. Sam moved to across the aisle from where the guy was sitting. 

"Didn't you tell them you worked in the Capitol?" Sam asked.

The guy didn't look up. "No. I'm an idiot. I should have thought of that."

Sam nodded. "Right."

"Look," the guy said. "Don't you people realize that setting Capitol Hill on fire can't _possibly_ be productive?"

"I agree," Sam said. "I had nothing to do with it."

The guy exhaled. "Whatever. I've just got to get out of here."

They sat in silence for a while. 

"How's the vote going?" Sam asked, at last.

"How the hell should I know? I'm stuck here with you."

"Right," Sam said again. He cursed himself, silently. Right here with an inside man during one of Congress's most terrifying and ridiculous decisions, and Sam had nothing to say.

"Were you with the protest, then?" the guy asked.

"I'm writing a thesis on defense budget reallocation," Sam said. "I was doing research."

The guy laughed. "Defense budget reallocation? I wrote my thesis on why it's a good idea to save the whales."

"Really?"

The guy laughed again, wryly. "Of course not, you numbskull. Man, I forgot what it was like to be a starry-eyed college kid who really thinks he can change the world."

Sam swallowed. "You don't think you can change the world?"

"Not if I can't get out of THIS hellhole!" the guy hollered, slapping his fists on his knees and staring up at the ceiling.

Sam held out a hand. "Sam Seaborn," he said. "Princeton, class of '90."

"Good for you," the guy said. He didn't shake Sam's hand, and Sam reached up and adjusted his glasses.

The guy turned to him and smiled weakly. He had deep dimples, and his eyes were tired and his curly hair stood out in six directions. "Sorry," he said. "I'm in a shitty mood."

Sam smiled back. "Understandable."

"Josh Lyman," the guy said. "Floor manager for the House Minority Whip. On an extended lunchbreak. Oh, and, uh, Yale, '84."

"It's a real honor, sir," Sam said. Josh snorted.

"Don't call me sir, ever," he said. "Don't call me Mr. Lyman either, in case you were moved to that fall-back position. My dad's Mr. Lyman. I'm just a dumb kid like you are, and you should call me Josh."

"In that case, you can call me idiot, or numbskull, whatever suits your fancy," Sam shrugged. 

"Sorry about that," Josh apologized again. "Man, is it cold in here, or what?"

The air conditioners were going, probably more for the white noise than to actually cool the place, but the environment was crisp and dry and frigid. "It's cold in here," Sam said, untying the other sweater from his waist. He weighed it in his hands a moment and then handed it to Josh. "Here."

Josh looked at it a minute, then took the mess of blue cableknit and pressed it to his face, which Sam thought was a little bizarre. "You wear Drakaar? You'll outgrow that one real fast."

"I probably wore it once at a party," Sam said, embarrassed, thinking of the bottle of Drakaar Noir on his bedside table at home. "I forgot to have the thing dry cleaned."

"Well, thanks," Josh said, pulling the Drakaar-scented sweater over his head. "Don't let me forget to give this back to you."

Josh was taller than Sam, but Sam was bulkier, and the sleeves hung short and baggy around Josh's shoulders. He fisted his hands together and blew into them. "That's much better," he said to Sam. "Thanks, really."

There was a soda machine in the corner of the room, and Sam stood up. "You want a coke, or something?"

"No," Josh said. "Sit down. Talk to me a minute."

Sam sat down again, this time next to Josh.

"Listen," Josh said. "This proposal's a ridiculous waste of money, and it will never pass. Anyone who's seen a sci-fi movie knows there's no way to contain a nuclear explosion in space, and we're talking about people who won't give money to NASA to explore space to begin with. It's just a big PR stunt to feel out the population, see how geared up people will get to think we'll start nuclear testing again. You live in a country that loves its cold war, you know. Americans love the idea that we've got a mortal enemy and we're preparing to slaughter them. It's like a big game of Risk to most of middle America, and these are the guys that buy the guns that support the politicians that oppose the gun-control bills. So today is just the Republicans giving these guys a little something back."

"The cold war's not gonna last," Sam said. "The demonstrations in Leipzig, people emigrating from East Germany. Communism has to fall, my guess is sometime in the next couple years. Your middle Americans are gonna get pretty antsy, huh?"

Josh seemed impressed. "That's what I'm afraid of," he said. "When we go out there looking for a new enemy."

"You blame President Bush?" Sam asked.

"I blame Michael Dukakis," Josh said. "For being such a stuffed shirt he couldn't beat that conservative bastard. What we need are strong Democrats, people the country can get excited about the way we got excited about Roosevelt, or Truman, or even Kennedy. Right now the Democratic party sucks. That's what pisses me off."

"There are a handful of good ones," Sam said. "Nita Lowey, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Mario Cuomo, and that's New York alone." 

"I heard him speak once, Moynihan, when I was in graduate school," Josh was looking up at the ceiling, remembering. "What a smart guy." He looked back at Sam. "That's two senators -- one of them a freshman -- and a governor who will never, ever run for president. I don't see a lot of leadership there."

Sam pursed his lips. "I'm not arguing with you," he said. "You're right. We need the real thing. We need an FDR again."

"It's about time, don't you think?" Josh nodded.

"I'll tell you what," Sam said. "If you come across one, an actual leader, the real thing, you've got my permission to call me at Princeton and I will drop out of school and come work on this guy's campaign."

Something crossed Josh's face, a flicker of something, and Sam's stomach leaped into his throat. Josh reached across the orange plastic armrest to lay his hand on top of Sam's, and Sam shivered. "You can count on me," Josh said. He didn't remove his hand, and Sam forced himself not to look down at it.

"H- How long have you been working for Gingrich?" Sam asked. Josh rolled his eyes.

"Nine months too long," Josh said. "I'm leaving in January to work for Earl Brennan, he's bringing me on as Chief of Staff."

Josh took his hand away. Sam felt his face getting hot. "Good," he said. "Gingrich might well be the devil."

Josh leaned in close. "I'll tell you a secret," he said. "His office smells like brimstone."

Sam chuckled nervously, feeling Josh's breath on his neck, his collarbone. "I knew it," Sam said. "But Brennan's a good guy?"

"I'm a good Chief of Staff," Josh said. "If I decide Brennan's the real deal, he will be."

"You're a spin doctor, then," Sam said.

"I'm a brilliant political strategist," Josh grinned. "Just read my resume. At the top, in big letters: Brilliant Political Strategist."

"Modest," Sam nodded.

"You're smart, for a kid," Josh said, as if he'd just decided it.

"I'm just a dumb kid like you are," Sam said. Josh waved a hand.

"Don't even try and pull that bullshit on me, I know you walk around thinking you're smarter than 95% of the population and wishing they'd just shut the hell up."

"Takes one to know one," Sam said.

"Apparently," Josh said.

The cop came back, looked around the room, met Josh's eye, nodded once, and left again.

"Looks like they figured out who you are," Sam said. 

"Yeah," Josh said. He stood up to take Sam's sweater off. "You okay, here?" he asked, handing Sam the sweater. "Someone's coming to get you?"

Sam thought of Annika for the first time in hours. "Yeah," he said. "My...friend."

Josh frowned. "Okay," he said. "So you should, uh, give me your number, or something."

Sam felt his pockets, realizing he still didn't have anything to write on. Josh uncapped a felt-tip pen and held out the palm of his hand. "Here."

His hand was warm, and soft, his fingers strong and slender. Sam wrote his number down on Josh's palm, recapped the pen and gave it back. "So call me," Sam said. "I only live about three hours away."

"Next time you get down here, I'll buy you a beer," Josh said. 

Sam stood up. "I'll walk you out," he said. "If they'll let me."

"They'll let you," Josh said. "They'd let me take you home with me, if you wanted to go. They know who I am."

Sam swallowed, searching Josh's face for signs of irony, but Josh looked earnest, eager, as if he'd just said something very significant and was waiting for the right response. Sam thought about Annika again.

"We could go grab a cup of coffee, or something," Sam said quickly. "My friend won't be able to track me down for a couple of hours more at least. She's, uh, not very bright."

Josh smiled. "I've got to get back to work," he said. "But, uh, how long are you in town?"

They'd planned on taking the 8:15 Amtrak back tonight. Annika had suggested getting a hotel, staying over, but Sam had argued, saying he needed to get back to his thesis. She'd been disappointed. But this was Josh, and this was different.

"Indefinitely," Sam said. "I've still got more research to do. Can I meet you somewhere?"

Josh looked around the room. Two of the other protesters were sleeping on the windowsills, a few more were sitting in scattered chairs, staring at spots on the wall. "Walk out with me," Josh said.

The sun was setting, and from here they could see the Capitol building's night-lights illuminating the black ground. The fires were apparently out. 

It was colder, now, and Sam hopped from foot to foot on the curb, waiting for Josh to hail a cab. 

"Hey," Josh said, leaning against a streetlamp. "Come here."

Sam went there, stood a couple of feet from Josh and cocked his head to the side.

Josh shook his head. "No," he said. "Come _here_."

Sam felt his heart beat like a hummingbird. His palms were clammy and he was sure his cheeks were crimson in the glow of the streetlight. He took a step closer.

And then Josh's hands were on his shoulders, and then Josh's fingers were moving through his hair, up his cheekbone, down around his ear, across the back of his neck. Sam tried to even his breathing, but he didn't pull away. 

"You're the real thing," Josh said. "Someday, you're going to change the world, Sam Seaborn."

Sam just nodded. Josh was lit like an angel under the streetlamp, his nose inches from Sam's. 

"Your...eyes are sort of...hazel," Sam said. 

Josh stroked his cheek. "Yours are sort of blue," he said. "They're beautiful."

"Thanks, I, um, I made 'em myself," Sam said. 

"Now shut up," Josh said, and kissed him. 

Sam shuddered, blood rushing to his face and his groin and his hands were everywhere at once, crawling up Josh's back, and he didn't know what to do with himself, he didn't know what to do. Josh kissed him again, a little harder, and Sam's mouth opened of its own accord and then he was tasting Josh's tongue, sweet and strange and bitter, like coffee and cigarettes. 

Josh pulled back a little. "Listen," he said. "Don't write that thesis. Write a better thesis. Get it published. Get yourself out there. Change the world."

Sam nodded. "Okay," he said.

"Are you a good writer?"

Sam nodded again. "I'm a fantastic writer."

"Then do it," Josh said. "We need people like you." He leaned in, and kissed Sam again. "I need people like you," he said. "This town is lonely without you."

"I'm going to go to law school," Sam said. 

"Go to Harvard," Josh said. "That's where I went. Everyone should go to law school. Everyone should go _there_ for law school."

"I'm looking at Duke," Sam said.

"Well, wherever you go, do it well, and do it fast, and then get down here. You belong in Washington, Sam."

"I know," Sam said. 

A cab pulled around the corner, and Josh peeled away from Sam to hold out his hand and hail it. The cab stopped a foot or so from the curb.

"I have to get back to work," Josh said.

"I have to get back to jail," Sam said. "If my friend shows up and I'm not there, she'll go back to New Jersey without me."

"Let her," Josh said, crossing to the cab door. "Stick around."

Sam shook his head. "I have a thesis to write," he said. "I have a world to change, remember?"

Josh looked at the palm of his hand, where Sam's number was written in big red numerals. "Good," he said. "Better than good. Go home. Be a fantastic writer." He opened the door to the cab and got in, and Sam walked to the edge of the curb, put his hand on the car roof, and leaned in after Josh.

"Hey," Sam said. "Come here."

And in the back seat of the cab, in front of the driver and god and everyone, Sam kissed Josh full on the mouth. 

"Yeah," Josh said, after Sam had pulled away. "You're the real thing."

And then the door shut and the cab drove off and Sam was left standing under the street lamp, alone. Walking back up to the police station, he pressed his blue cableknit sweater to his face and inhaled. It didn't smell like Drakaar anymore. It smelled like Josh.

And soon he'd be done with Princeton, be done with law school, have a dozen papers published and he'd get to write "Brilliant Political Strategist" at the top of his own resume. Because Josh was right. This was the real thing. And Sam belonged in Washington.


End file.
